Slimmed-Down Grant Williams Making Strong Impression in Camp

https://www.nba.com/celtics/news/sidebar/prac-101021-slimmed-down-grant-williams-making-strong-impression-camp








Slimmed-Down Grant Williams Making Strong Impression in Camp



By Taylor Snow |  @taylorcsnow
Celtics.com
October 10, 2021


Shortly after he was hired by the Boston Celtics this past June, Ime Udoka got a call from Grant Williams. The 22-year-old forward wanted to know exactly what his new head coach wanted him to work on during the summer so that he could come into his third NBA season ready to make an impact.

“Some of those things,” Udoka told Celtics.com Sunday afternoon, “were being in shape, being able to guard, and shooting the ball – improving his shot.”

So, Williams got to work and has been checking off each of those boxes, one by one.

Williams showed up to training camp around 15 pounds lighter, with the hope of dropping another 10 during the season. Slimming down has allowed him to defend with more versatility, and to cut to the basket with greater ease on offense. And his shot has spoken for itself in the first two preseason games, as he’s connected on 5-of-9 from the field, including 3-of-5 from 3-point range.

During a 113-111 win over Toronto Saturday night, Williams led all Celtics bench scorers with 12 points in 16 minutes. He also made some noise at the rim on both ends of the court, as he blocked a dunk attempt and threw down an athletic, cutting slam of his own.

“That dunk made me feel a little bit happier,” Williams said with a smile after the game. “I’m getting in the air a little bit, feeling a little bit lighter on my feet, defending a little bit better, trying to improve every single day.”

Part of that improvement comes from studying the game more intently. In particular, he’s been observing Al Horford’s day-to-day approach, hoping to pick some things up from the five-time All-Star.

In doing so, he hopes to have a “Baby Al” type of role this season.

“When you are around a guy like Al, he just does a lot of things you see on film that not many people normally do,” said Williams, who averaged 4.7 points and 2.8 rebounds per game last season while playing 18.1 minutes per contest. “Just through watching him, how his approach is every single day and how he moves every single practice -- he may not be the fastest dude in the world, he may not be the most athletic right now, but he knows the game and he sees it really well.”

Horford, meanwhile, has observed that Williams is picking things up at a rapid pace.

“Grant, from what I've seen with him, he's kind of like a sponge,” said Horford, who assisted on Williams’ cutting dunk against the Raptors. “He's just picking things up, he receives things. And he's shooting the ball right now with a lot of confidence. The other part of his game is continuing to find ways of cutting and moving to impact the game, and he did a good job of that [Saturday night].”

If Williams continues to impact the game in such a manner, then he’ll put himself in a solid position to snag some of the power forward minutes that are currently up for grabs. Udoka likes what the 6-foot-6, 236-pound forward brings to the table as a non-traditional big, especially now that he’s able to move better and provide more defensive versatility.

The coach remembers seeing such defensive potential in Williams two seasons ago when he and Horford were with the 76ers.

“Against us in Philadelphia a few years ago in the playoffs, he was really a big piece for them defensively at the small-ball 5,” Udoka recalled. “Then the way he shot the ball took us out of some coverages there numbers-wise.

“Those are the things I stress with him. It starts with your shot, decision making and then being able to guard. And he's taken that to heart. You can see he looks better physically overall, and it's translated to what he's done in camp.”


Bob
MY NOTE:  I hope DBoss and dbrown have to eat their words on Grant Williams this year, not because I want them to look or feel bad but because that would mean he's changing their minds one play, one game after another and that'd be a good thing.  It's way too early to put too much weight upon what he's done so far but, based upon what I'm already hearing from dbrown, it's looking like Brad misused Grant.  He told him he was going to be a small ball 5, NOT his natural position, and that meant Grant had to bulk up to handle the pounding along with all the loss of mobility that comes with adding that extra weight.  Now that Brad's not the coach who had to live with the roster Danny gave him, and is the GM who gets to decide what the roster looks like, he has brought in Horford and Kanter so we have more natural 5s and Grant can go back to playing the position he played in Tennessee, power forward.

Al is saying Grant's "a sponge".  I call that "BBIQ".  Grant's a smart player, a very high IQ for the game.  Now that's he playing his natural position his IQ should really help him. We're still thin at 4. Juancho and Grant have got to pull their weight there.



.

Bobh,

I love eating my own words! I'm wrong quite often here. If it means he comes out of the gate this year like he already has, then serve me up some crow!! Misused does seem like the operative word for him. Very efficient play for him.

I was just really big on the need for the upheaval from coach to GM and I got that. GW just seemed a lot of times he was in no man's land. But fresh eyes and taking the initiative to ask the coach right out of the gate what needs to be done to improve his game goes a long way.

I'm on the side of the fence right now that says the bench won't be a problem. That means we can focus on the starters and fine tuning that into a Big 5 like Bird, Parish, McHale, Ainge and DJ or for some of the more seasoned any starting 5 from the 60's!!

I'm also thinking there's huge competition for the first guy off the bench or the 6th man as he used to be called. Langford has led the way with Jaylen taking a COVID seat for a couple of weeks. You gotta think Pritchard is going through brick walls and spitting nails for his shot to start. Same with Al as already mentioned several times now.

Remember last season when one of our starters went down we had to do the math and figure where the points were going to come from usually by committee. Now I feel one or even two of our guys could go down for extended time and we wouldn't lose a beat. That's a huge difference. It's been quite a while since we have said that with confidence. I'm thinking back to 2008 with Eddie House and company.

We also have yet to see the awesome power display of a fully operational Starting 5 Death Star. That alone has to have your ordering League Pass if you haven't done so already! This is the year where our eyes will be not necessarily on the two J's scoring totals but on the assist columns totals for both. If they both come in averaging 7-8 for the season, then the title talk starts up...for THIS year...in a BIG WAY. Also we'll be looking downhill (north to south/south to north) at the free throw numbers. "If you're going to double us or we see it coming, you're going to have to foul us" syndrome.

Lots of moving pieces. Should be a very interesting year for sure!

db

I have never been a huge Grant Williams fan, but I would love to be proven wrong. He is a smart dude - his mom works for NASA, his dad is a jazz musician (and former college player) and he turned down offers at Harvard and Yale to go to Tennessee - given his non-basketball IQ, it's no surprise he has a high hoops IQ

I’m rooting for him, but why are they calling an average dunk athletic? He did a nice cut and received a pass from Al for a wide open dunk, the key to the play was the cut. I consider athletic dunks are dunks in traffic with hang time, you know it when yo see it….just keeping it real

Bobh

There are no words to eat yet.  What we have is a 2 game preseason sample size.  

He does look slimmed down a bit and I notice he now has the agility of a trick elephant in the circus.

His catch and shoot attempts look better and his shot does not look as flat.  At the same time, I have seen nothing that raises a bar of low expectations.

How many NBA players could make a two handed uncontested dunk?  like all of them.

If Grant can continue to improve, he could at the very least become a player that we can move.